That’s where I have to go right now. I can’t stay. I wish I could at least fold up the tree and stick it in my truck, stashed with my booze and mechanic tools, but I’ll have to come back for it. At least I have the good knowledge that it’s near a secluded part of Zone 4, a zone known as the “Safe Zone.”

Party didn’t follow me out of my tree. After jumping in my army truck, I sat and counted down from five, expecting something to happen within those five seconds.

Five. Nothing. I could still see Party’s shadow in my tree.

Four. Party’s shadow starts pacing inside. I look over at the guys and saw they were wrapped up in a conversation with Dr. D and Valium Syndrome, backs to me.

Three. Party suddenly stopped wearing a hole in the ground where he was pacing. I cocked my head to the right.

Two. Party turned towards the tree’s opening and began to walk outside in the afternoon sun. His fire engine red hair started to glow as I muttered, “One,” and turned the old truck on, putting the pedal to the metal.

“Vi!” I hear Party say. I will not respond to a nickname though.

I turn around in time to see Party and the guys jump in my love. I turn my eyes back to my cactus, which I’m fast approaching. I hit the brake, jump out of the truck, wincing in pain as my nose throbs and my arm screams in despair as I move it, grab Ricky, jump back in my truck, landing on my broken arm, screaming. I catch myself before I really sound like anything, though, and turn my idling truck to the left, my love in hot pursuit of my exhaust.

I floor my truck, whipping my head around. My love is still following me. I turn to the floor of my truck, where, lucky me, my Bans are tumbling around. I snatch them up and pull them over my eyes, tugging my scarf up over my nose and mouth so I don’t breathe in sand from what I’m planning to do.

I glance at my speed: 103 mph. Damn. That’s good for me, and really good for my truck. The most this piece of junk goes is 70. At least I know my love can keep up in a high-speed chase too, because I still hear my love groaning in pleasure as she flies. I have the stupid knowledge to look down at my gas meter: none. I’m literally running on fumes and velocity of the huge truck hauling ass with no brakes. I mutter, “Fuckin’ shit,” and hit the brake with the force of a five ton elephant. I wince in pain of my arm, Damn I really broke it, but not before slamming into the dashboard, broken-nose first yet again. Goddamnit, I need to stop doing that.

Just as I thought, though, my love jerked and screamed past my stopped ass. I figured I had about 45 seconds to do this after stopping the blood flow seeping from my nose, so, with my scarf covering my bloody nose and my broken arm screaming for help, I gassed my truck up. When I had jumped out of my truck, my love looked to be a half a mile past me when she turned around, spinning her wheels and kicking up dust. I let my hidden jaw drop as I saw her left side. Near her front bumper, American Flag lines ran parallel to the ground, curving above her wheel, with what seemed to have the word “NA” painted repeatedly between red lines in thin, black lines. In between her front wheel and the lower half of the her driver’s door, a blue block has been painted and covered in white stars. The front wheel had a smiley sticker on the hubcap, with the back hubcap having a black swirl to the center. Something I didn’t notice before on the bumper was a black X where a tag should have been. There were stickers and logos on the door behind the stripes, all of which I recognized from my spot as Dr. Death Defying stickers, as they were all dark in odd shapes. The number 55 was painted on the door at a haphazard angle. This side was also covered in dirt, but it seemed to more on this side than the other.

After I gawked for a long enough time to let sand creep in my mouth from nder my bandana, the guys were almost at my truck. I shook my head to rid of the dust, making me very dizzy, and slowly climbed in my truck, shutting the door with a slam, which made my ears ring, my arm cry out, and Ricky jump on the floor.

I smiled as my love stopped to my left, though I didn’t know why. “Hey guuyyyssss,” slurring my words for some odd reason while smiling like an idiot again, but meaning it this time. Party and Blondie jumped out of my love, and rushed over to my truck as I say spots of dark haze float before my eyes. I laughed giddily, hurting my arm, and tried to wave those little suckers off. Party had opened the driver’s door when the hazes attacked my eyes and made me go blind.

I screamed, no lie there. I was happy until these things took the light away. Being in the desert in the dark, it’s one of the scariest things to me. I’m not afraid of the dark, I’m just afraid if I stay in the dark too long I’ll forget the light.

Party jumped in my truck where I was sitting, moving me to the passenger’s side and shutting me up by pulling my bandana down from my mouth and clapping his hand over my mouth, making my nose hurt even more than it already was. I heard Blondie open my truck’s trunk up and I said, “Hey…” before Party shushed me. Man, that guy could shush. It’s like he went to shush school before Tim… Tim. I frowned. That bastard left, leaving me depressed. I was so depressed, I tried to write "KILL TIM" on my arms with a brand new razor I had gotten from the Black to remind myself to kill him and then started the dosage of BL/ind pills. I started to smile and shut my eyes as I thought of those days where nothing changed…

Party said, “Shit Moonstruck! She’s going out!” He grabbed my shoulders and shook me, making my arm hurt and my head throb even more than it was, and I tried to push his arms away, losing all the strength I had. Party wouldn’t quit though. “Bob, hurry the fuck up! Just get some water!” I came back into the world for a moment when I heard Bob… Blondie was Bob? I groaned, thinking way too hard for my skills right now, and let my head roll back. Somebody shuts a car door, but I can tell it’s not mine. I hear footsteps, so many footsteps… I shut my eyes tighter, making me want to vomit so very badly. “Hey, what’s happening to her?” I hear the voice but don’t really care. I still reply anyway.

“Hey, Vi, wake back up,” Party said as he lightly shook me again. My head rolled again, and Party shook again, but harder this time. “Violet!” He slapped my face a few times, but I was starting to feel so much pain I couldn’t get angry. I couldn’t even get angry at the quiet chit-chatter buzzing by my ear.

“Urghhh…” I sighed, and tears began to roll down my cheeks. The pain was too much. I just wanted it to be over. It was still there though when I shut my eyes. Party gasped and screamed, “HURRY THE FUCK UP BOB!” The chit-chat got louder.

That made my head hurt even more than it already was. I turned to let my head roll out the window, but no vomit cane out. Just… Nothing. My tears fell to the ground, and I swear I heard them splash on the ground like a waterfall. Blondie Bob finally came around after digging so very loudly in my truck, his feet shaking the ground, and I almost saw light before I rolled my head back in my truck. When I heard the shake of a pill bottle, I knew exactly what Bob had gotten. I knew the shape, size, weight, color, texture, taste, smell, and even the number printed on those pills, along with the precise amount it would take to overdose and never come back from the dark. I knew that Party knew what they were, too, because I felt his arm grasp me tighter, hurting me even more.

Apparently he thought they would get the dark off of my eyes, because he sat me up and stuck one in my mouth. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry. “Bob! Water!” Party yelled, making me want to vomit again. Footsteps shook the ground, and then I felt the rush of cold water working its way down my throat, the BL/ind pill in tow. Instantly I felt… Nothing. I sat up and looked at the five strange men around me.

“Who are you?” I asked, glancing around at the four men. I could tell my routine was disturbed, because I wasn’t in my cubicle in Battery City. I wasn’t an assembly either, with the head director, Korse, speaking through a microphone. No, I was in a truck, with five men staring upon me with worry. I looked at my right arm that was laying at my side, covered in something red, and said, “Oh. It looks broken.”

The strangest man with the red hair muttered something inaudible and yelled for another man named Bob and for him to get a piece of cloth and some alcohol, if any. I looked upon this man with no emotion, and he stared at me, in shock. I felt something falling off of my face, and went to touch it with my left hand.

“No, don’t,” the red haired man said, and took my hand. I stared down at it, and blinked. This isn’t allowed in Battery City. Why is it happening now?

A blond man came up to my left and handed me a clear bottle that had a black label and a clear liquid sitting inside it. “Drink it,” a short man said to my left. I sniffed the bottle, and a tall man got angry. “Just drink it!” the tall man said, and grabbed by head and the bottle, opening my mouth and pouring the clear liquid down my throat, while being yelled at by the red haired man.

The clear liquid burned as it went down my throat, while the blond man was wrapping my right arm in a piece of cloth. I blinked, and something clicked, because I began to recognize these guys…

“Uhhh, fuck. I don’t wanna see you guys,” I groaned as I looked down at my arm, which had been wrapped up in one of my jackets. That was good, ‘cause I knew it was broken, but I couldn’t feel it. “Why’d you have to do this?” I asked, looking at Blondie Bob and raising my wrapped arm. “I was perfectly fine alone.”

“No, you weren’t. You were screaming and bleeding all over the place. You had Party worried sick,” Boy Wonder said in a matter-of-factly tone, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Party go as red as his hair. Hey wait, I saw Boy Wonder say that, and Party do that. Cool, the hazes left the building, erm… Truck. “Why the fuck do you have those anyway?” he said, nodding to my pill bottle in Blondie’s hand. Fuck, I’ve been discovered.

“I have my fucking reasons,” I glare at him and see the blood on my scrunched-up nose. “Hey, Blondie, go get me another shirt. My nose is bleeding like a stuck pig.

Party just stared at me, something in his eyes that I have long forgotten. Then I remembered; sadness. Goddamnit, why do his puppy eyes have to be so good?

I glared at him. “It’s that or ‘Bob’.” Blondie shrugged and turned back towards the guys, not making a sign that he’s gonna move. Fuckin’ loser. I’ll have to get up and do it myself.

I start to open the door with my good arm, but Party stops me by grabbing my arm. “Let me do it,” he says, and gets up out of the truck. I lean back, scowling, wanting to move. I know Party’s mad at me, and I know he wants to know why I have the pills. He’ll just have to wait to know, though, because there ain’t no way I’m risking my secret coming out with other super fucking human hearing. When Party does finally come back with one of my dirtier looking shirts, he climbs into the truck and holds the shirt to my nose, which is still bleeding.
“This is gonna hurt,” Party says, and reaches out for my nose. I back away, shooting hate dagger towards him. “You’re nose is crooked,” he points out, to which I turn my rear view mirror towards me and see my nose looks to be thirty degrees off its normal place. I sigh. “Do it.”

Party reaches over again, grabs my nose, and pops it back into place, cause more blood flow and me to moan in the dull pain that made its way through the pill’s magic. I looked back in the mirror and saw that my nose was better, but still bloody, and still a little crooked. It’s going to be weird to see my nose straight and clean on my face again, I can tell. I look back down at my arm, and sigh again.

“Can you guys leave me alone now?” I ask, getting heads turned at me as Party’s face turned red. “All I wanted to do was be a normal hermit, but you guys are making that impossible.”

Party looked at me with his (hey, look) hazel eyes and I swear my ice of a heart warmed up. “Vi, we need you. Like I said, you’re the most badass Killjoy out there, number 6 on the list. You and my guys could destroy BL/ind.” I look in his eyes again and see no emotion whatsoever this time.

“What about Valium Syndrome? Can’t you just have him… Her… Whatever it is?” I looked at Party with no emotion either, a move I have perfected over the years. It’s amazing what three years of solitude can do for you.

Gigantor sighed behind me and I turned around. “SHE isn’t one of the most wanted Killjoys, Violet Rage. SHE just got out here. We’re taking HER along ‘cause the Doc wanted HER to learn from the best.” I smirked at Gigantor.

“You have a lumpy butt,” I reply to his comment.

The guys laughed, except for Gigantor, who turned beet red and stalked back to my love, and myself, because you should never laugh at your own comebacks. I got a high five from Boy Wonder, who was tearing up. I didn’t know my comeback was that funny, but apparently it was. These guys must never see girls, I think, snickering.

Finally the guys except for Party walk back to my love, and I watch him as he turns my engine on and starts to drive. “Where to?” I ask, having not a clue about where we’re going. Party turns my way and smirks. “The Black.”

“Finally! I’ve been needing to go there for forever now,” I say, with fake enthusiasm, but actually I have been needing to go. I’m just preparing for what I’m about to say. “Party, can I tell you something?”